Brexit Britain should lead the way by banning mass antibiotic use in agriculture.

Brexit Britain should lead the way by banning mass antibiotic use in agriculture, says top doctors.The heads of 12 royal medical colleges, as well as the Faculty of Public Health, the British Medical Association and two leading health journals, today call on the Government to step up the fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR) by prohibiting preventative prescription of medicines on animals. Writing in The Daily Telegraph, they say the UK is now in a “unique position” to introduce a ban.The intervention comes weeks after a Cambridge University study found that a quarter of supermarket chicken contained antibiotic-resistant e.coli, a bug that can lead to kidney failure and in severe cases death. In May a Government-commissioned report led by Lord Jim O’Neill said the rise of drug-resistant superbugs threatened to return medicine to the “dark ages” by rendering impotent swathes of commonly used antibiotics.continue